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Month Archives: May 2012

by
Family Research Council

May 30, 2012

This afternoon on the House floor, debate was lively regarding HR 3541, the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” (PRENDA).

A number of women spoke out in support of the bill. “A vote against PRENDA is a vote for gendercide,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, TN. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, NY, said that “Sex selection abortion is the ultimate war on women”…and “if we don’t allow women the right to be born, they are denied all other rights.” Rep. Sandy Adams, FL, also spoke favorably towards the bill.

Interestingly, while the Democrats dropped their favorite rhetorical phrase “War on Women” (or, in the case of Rep. Hank Johnson, GA “WOW”) with some frequency during the debate, only one Democratic congresswoman was willing to go on the record and speak up in opposition to the bill, Rep. Barbara Lee, CA.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, FL, clearly shocked that people would not support the bill, spoke about the serious nature of voting against sex selection abortion, regardless of political affiliation.

by
Family Research Council

May 29, 2012

Good afternoon. It is good to be with so many like-minded men and women, people who are committed to defending our most essential freedom — religious liberty.

We tend naturally to focus on religious freedom issues that rise to the national level. Those cases that come before the Supreme Court rank high in public interest and command the attention of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other giants of the main-stream media.

One of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom is the proposed Health and Human Services contraception mandate. As I have written in a variety of opinion pieces, there has been nothing comparable to this in 225 years in this country. There is truly no precedent for the threat embodied in theHHSMandate.

If the federal government can force not only Catholic institutions, but those of many other faith communities, and small businesses, and family-owned firms to provide drugs that can cause abortions or chemical contraceptives that violate their beliefs, then the First Amendment to the Constitution has effectively been repealed.

Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant.

Approximately one in six hospital patients inAmericais cared for in Catholic hospitals. These hospitals employ more than 550,000 full-time workers and 240,000 part-timers.

One thing needs to be emphasized here: Many of those employees and many of the millions of patients seen in those hospitals choose Catholic health care because it is grounded in a set of moral convictions. This is true even, and perhaps especially, for non-Catholics who seek care or who work in these Catholic institutions.

My Family Research Council colleague, Bob Morrison, a Lutheran, has twin granddaughters who were delivered at a Catholic hospital last December. When these newborns came down with the life-threatening RSV virus over Christmas, Bob was relieved that the twins were cared for in a Catholic institution. There, he could trust the care-givers and the administrators to share his family’s pro-life convictions and practice them in the way they treated his grandchildren.

Even when it is a specifically Catholic institution being threatened, the religious liberties of all Americans are in jeopardy. If Catholic hospitals are forced to choose between God and Caesar, bureaucrats will eventually compel other religious organizations and faith-based ministries to make an identical choice.

And ironically, even though Obamacare is intended to help the uninsured, it’s those of lower income who will suffer most as Catholic hospitals and religious colleges suspend health insurance altogether.

This present danger notwithstanding, our experience suggests that most threats to religious freedom have come at the state and local levels. One of the most blatant examples was the case of Oregon in the 1920s. There, a popular referendum strongly backed by the Ku Klux Klan outlawed private education. Only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) was this threat blocked. It was in this case that the Court memorably said: “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

Then there were the Blaine Amendments, named for James Gillespie Blaine the powerful Republican who sought to ban any public funds from aiding — even indirectly — what were then called “sectarian” institutions.

Though the Blaine Amendment, a vestige of the Know-Nothing movement of the 1800’s, was never passed at the federal level, similar legislation was enacted and is even today still on the books in many state constitutions. They were put in state constitutions to stop families from educating their children in Catholic schools (instead of public schools). Now, they have become a wall between private faith and the public square.

The Blaine Amendments, on record in 40 jurisdictions, constitute a serious barrier to education reform and parental choice.

The Becket Fund, a non-profit that protects the free expression of all faiths, is litigating a case inOklahoma. There a family seeks to use a state scholarship to send their autistic son to a religious school for special needs children.

InIndiana, the state teachers union, predictably, is leading the charge to prevent parents from using vouchers at religious schools. The union claims these parents are violating the Indiana Blaine Amendment.

InFlorida, voters will have the chance this November to repeal that state’s Blaine Amendment. Local family policy councils, state and national public interest law firms, and citizen-activists have worked tirelessly to bring this policy change to the ballot.

The government not only threatens religious liberty in our education, it also threatens through supposed discrimination laws. We have the case of aMichiganpublic university grad student, Julea Ward. Because of her religious convictions, she asked to refer a homosexual client to another counselor. She was then ordered to go through “remediation.” Ms. Ward refused and was expelled. A host of religious liberty defenders, most notably the Alliance Defense Fund, are standing with her.

We have seen Catholic Charities forced out of adoptions in Massachusetts and Illinois because they will not place children in same-sex or unmarried households. In Washington, D.C., this so-called “non-discrimination policy” was used by the City Council to achieve the ends of anti-Catholicism. Told by the Archdiocese that they might be forcing Catholic Charities out of adoptions in the nation’ capital, one councilman said, and I quote:

“Good. We’ve been trying to get you out of it forever. And, besides, we are paying you to do it. So, get out!” (Interview by James Taranto, Wall Street Journal,31 March 2012)

Conscience Protection Laws are vitally needed. Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansasrecently signed a strong one. But many state laws are weak or unenforced. In WashingtonState, for example, Gov. Christine Gregoire pressured a pharmacy owned and operated by two sisters who refused to dispense the so-called morning after pill. This drug can cause abortions. The Governor personally joined in a boycott of this family-owned pharmacy. So much for the war on women.

It is amazing how quickly this storm has arisen. In 2008, at the end of the Bush administration, our colleague then-Secretary Mike Leavitt issued conscience regulations on behalf of the Departmentment of Health and Human Services. These were good conscience regs — protecting doctors and hospitals from being forced to practice medicine that they found morally objectionable. Immediately upon coming into office, the Obama administration revoked the regulations.

With theHHSMandate, the gloves have come off. The carve-out for religious institutions is so narrow, so restricted, that it is hard to imagine even cloistered nuns qualifying for a religious exemption.

Knights of Columbus Grand Knight Carl Anderson questions whether Jesus’ own ministry would qualify for an exemption from theHHS Mandate. Was His work wholly religious? Or was He engaged in the food service industry with those loaves and fishes?

There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation.

More tells his prosecutors: “I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.”

Thank God, we have not gotten to that point.

But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics — this divide-and-conquer strategy — to succeed. If theHHScan that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?

So we are not being alarmist when we take alarm. James Madison knew something of liberty: “The people are right,”Madisonsaid, “to take alarm at the first advance on their liberties.”

The battle is raging inWashington, without question. But the key battle-front of this fight is in your state — at your local hospital, or adoption agency. Are you up for the challenge?

by
Chris Gacek

May 29, 2012

Last week, the Washington Times carried a powerful op-ed by Robert Zubrin, a senior fellow the Center for Security Policy, tracing the intellectual roots of Chinas brutal one-child policy to the population-control movement including the Club of Rome. (The author has a longer article in the The New Atlantis which is an excerpt from his recently published book on this topic.) Zubrins op-ed contains this chilling description of the policy in action:

Thus began the most forceful population-control program since Nazi Germany. Qian Xinzhong, a Soviet-trained former major general in the Peoples Liberation Army, was placed in charge of the campaign. He ordered all women with one child to have a stainless steel IUD inserted and to be inspected regularly to make sure they had not tampered with it. To remove the device was deemed a criminal act. All parents with two or more children were to be sterilized. No pregnancies were legal for anyone under 23, whether married or not, and all unauthorized pregnancies were to be aborted.

Women who defied these injunctions were taken and sterilized by force. Babies would be aborted right through the ninth month of pregnancy, with many crying as they were being stabbed to death at the moment of birth. Those women who fled to try to save their children were hunted, and if they could not be caught, their houses were torn down, and their parents thrown in prison, there to linger until a ransom of 20,000 yuan - about three years income for a peasant - was paid for their release.

[The description continues….] It was this mind-boggling abuse of women that the blind human rights activist, Chen Guangcheng, documented and pursued leading to his arrest by Chinese authorities. It is hard to imagine the extent of the police state needed to enforce such a policy.

China still mandates the one-child policy this is not part of the past but the present.

by
Robert Morrison

May 25, 2012

If we forget what we did, we will forget who we are. Those were the words of President Ronald Reagan in his Farewell Address to the American people in 1989. They are especially poignant words, since it was just five years later that the former President was diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease, a fatal ailment that first robs victims of their precious memories.

Ronald Reagan has been given credit for restoring American patriotism at a time when corrosive cynicism threatened all our institutions. This Memorial Day is a good time to remember who we are.

Family Research Council is grateful to Californias Kim Bengard, who serves as a board member. Kim and her husband Tom have given so much to FRC, but they have also helped to give us back our memories. They produced Mother of Normandy. This film and website tells the story of Madame Simone Renaud, wife of the Mayor of the little French village of Sainte Mere Eglise. This was the first town liberated by American soldiers when we invaded on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Madame Renaud, fluent in English, began writing to the young widows and mothers of American soldiers who had been killed fighting to free her country. She was shown in LIFEmagazine putting flowers on the grave of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the President. What began as a mission of mercy became a lifetime calling. Mother of Normandy tells this touching story of war and remembrance.

President Reagan gave another famous speech, this one at the 1984 ceremonies marking the fortieth anniversary of D-Day. The president spoke from the heights that had been scaled by American Rangers. Many of the survivors sat before him as he hailed The Boys of Pointe du Hoc. He lauded their heroism and thanked them on behalf of a grateful nation for their sacrifices.

Historian Douglas Brinkley says that Reagan revived American patriotism with this speech. By focusing on a small group—those valiant few who scaled the heights on that cold and blustery June morning—Reagan lifted up all soldiers, all sailors, and all airmen. He lifted up an entire generation of Americans who gave their all for Victory.

Subsequent presidents have gone to Normandy. It is no partisan statement to say their words there have been largely forgotten. One of them even hovered over the nations like a god. Hovered and departed.

Reagan, with his unerring sense of drama, took care not to make his words too abstract. He pointed to living, breathing men, to the gnarled hands that once stabbed their daggers into hard and unyielding stone to reclaim a continent for freedom. Like Lincoln, he lifted them up, not himself. This is why we can remember what he said there.

He spoke of the band of brothers who buried their dearest friends in Normandy. Today we can think of those beaches at Normandy and know that they represent all the places where American warriors have carried the flag to defend our enduring freedom.

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of the summer season. It is not unfitting to take time for recreation and enjoyment. Those who fought and died enjoyed the blessings of liberty, too. They wanted us to share in that joy of living.

Still, we should take time as well to thank God for the gift of freedom. Let us pray for the families of those they left behind. We can pray, as well, for the families who today receive uniformed officers bearing the dreaded news: their loved one has been killed inAfghanistan, or some other trouble spot.

We can share with our own families words from Stephen Spenders poem, words that Ronald Reagan memorably shared with the world.

by
Robert Morrison

May 25, 2012

Thomas Jefferson thought there were woolly mammoths on theGreat Plains. He really did. Jefferson was no dummy. He succeeded Ben Franklin as president of the American Philosophical Society, an organization to which the leading lights in American science all belonged.

When he was president, Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to undertake their great Corps of Discovery. Its a thrilling story, the nineteenth century equivalent of Americas race to the Moon. Historian Stephen Ambroses bestselling book, Undaunted Courage retells the story that once entranced all Americans.

The reason Mr. Jefferson thought Lewis & Clark might encounter woolly mammoths on theGreat Plainsis simple: he believed in Creation. And to his most logical mind, it did not make sense for the Creator to make something as wonderful as a woolly mammoth only to let it become extinct. We might say God doesnt make any junk.

Mr. Jeffersons theology, however, failed to take into account the catastrophic consequences of the Fall. His dearest friend, James Madison, fully appreciated Mans fallen nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary, Madison wrote in Federalist 51. I like to say that whenever Mr. Jefferson would lean forward too far, like MSNBC, Madison would be there to pull him back by his coattails.

Back to the mammoths. So, Lewis & Clark were the ones to report back that there was no Northwest Passage to the Orient on this continent. Map makers and explorers in the Age of Jefferson thought there might be an all-water passage that would open up Asia for commerce and friendship. They sent back to Washington crates of bones and fossils and they stuffed and mounted some of the large animals they saw on the Great Plains. Buffalo, or American bison, were a sensation. But no mammoths.

An all-water passage would be found much later, in 1957. The Coast Guard icebreaker, Storis plowed a pathway between the seas and lead a small flotilla from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Storis saw polar bears, seals and walruses, whales, and porpoises, but still no woolly mammoths.

Maybe the reason Lewis & Clark missed the woolly mammoths is they followed the Missouri River and turned left too soon. They entirely missed Minnesota. You gotta watch out for those premature left turns.

So, in 1973-74, I decided to do my own search for woolly mammoths in Minnesota. I trekked all over the state, raising funds for the Democratic Farmer-Labor party. I knew those big cities and small towns very well. Twin Cities, Rochester, Mankato, Moorhead, Thief River Falls, Detroit Lakes, and all the towns on the famed Iron Range—Virginia, Eveleth, Hibbing. Grand Marais sounds so romantic. Thats French for Big Swamp. In Bemidji, I saw a mammoth statue of Paul Bunyan, but no woolly mammoths.

In Duluth, in the middle of the night, I thought it was an earthquake when I heard booming and cracking. It was just the ice on Lake Superior breaking up on June first.

This would be the perfect place to find end my quest. Even if my prehistoric pachyderms were petrified in the ice, it would still be a great discovery. Some years back, the Soviets had actually uncovered mammoths in the Siberian ice. They claimed you could eat the meat. If you ever tried Bolshevik burgers, Im sure mammoth meat would be a welcome change. Now, the Russians are saying they have mammoths in Siberia. Im skeptical. Trust but verify.

Last week, I returned to Minnesota. I was there to promote FRCs support for the North Star States marriage referendum. I was honored to go to Stillwater, Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Cloud and New Hope. Just being in Minnesota gives me new hope.

All the buzz, of course, was about President Obama and his coming out for same-sex couplings to be recognized as marriages. He finally dropped the other shoe, said all the liberal blogs. It seemed to me it was more like a centipede dropping the last shoe, but whatever.

Mr. Obama claimed he had evolved on the issue. Newsweek even hailed him as the first gay president. Talk about evolving. Then, it hit me. Thats why I couldnt find my woolly mammoths in Minnesota. Like the president, they had all evolved.

by
Krystle Gabele

May 24, 2012

Rapid change has become the norm in everything from technology to culture. A New York court has issued a ruling that once would have been unimaginable: that child pornography is acceptable to view online. An American President applauds same-sex “marriage.” The federal government is trying to force religious-based hospitals and colleges to provide abortion drugs in their insurance plans.

Pastors, and the churches they serve, can play a critical role in helping families stand against the onslaught of a decaying and invasive culture. That’s why this week, FRC’s Church Ministries division will be holding its annual pastor’s conference in Washington, D.C., “Watchmen on the Wall.” You can view the event live here. National leaders will be talking about how churches can advance and defend faith, family, and freedom in their communities, in their states, and across the nation. It’s a unique annual event, one worth viewing - and encouraging your church leaders to watch, as well.

In the midst of social erosion, we would do well to reflect on the words of the late Anglican pastor and theologian John Stott: “We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, ‘What has happened to the salt and light?’” That “salt and light” would be all who know Jesus Christ. To that end, let’s stand together, in grace and truth, for those virtues that alone can inform a good and just society that benefits everyone.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder

Senior Vice-President

Family Research Council

P.S. Last week, FRC hosted psychologist Dr. Brenda Hunter and her daughter Kristin Blair for a lecture based on their new book, From Sexting to Santa, a practical, real-life guide to raising your children in a morally hostile environment. Watch their exceptional presentation here.

by
Chris Gacek

May 22, 2012

Nancy Anderson, a certified financial planner with Financial Finesse, is a Forbes contributor who is interested in the college debt crisis. In a Forbespiece from March, Ms. Anderson references an article from Business Insider which argues that the college sticker estimate $60,000 per year for top-tier private colleges/universities appreciably underestimates true costs. They estimate that extras could total $70,000 over four years depending on the students circumstances.

Some of this total appears to be for expenditures one might have even if one were not at college. However, it is clear that costs can mount up from unexpected directions. One I found interesting was $2,000 per year for fraternity/sorority dues. The list definitely has some extras, but the point is legit.

Anderson writes that todays students face a lifetime of tougher economic times mostly related to the disappearance of pensions and inevitable Social Security reductions.

It is also becoming clear that the drag from college loan debt and underwater mortgages will be considerable for many years. All sorts of purchases will be crowded out: automobiles, furniture, travel, etc.

by
Jared Bridges

May 22, 2012

by
Robert Morrison

May 22, 2012

I had the enjoyable experience of returning to Minnesota last week and adding a trip to Wisconsin. Joining the FRC-Heritage Foundations Values Bus in Minneapolis, we first heard famed talk show host Hugh Hewitt make an impassioned appeal for marriage at the Minnesota Family Councils annual dinner.

Of course, we will be accused of pushing marriage for religious reasons. Dont shy away from that, Hewitt said. God created the institution of marriage for our good. Consider Genesis, where God creates the world and everything seen and unseen. He blesses all saying it is good. The first time He says anything is not good is when He sees that the man is alone. Nor should we ever be ashamed of the Gospel. Jesuss first miracle was done at the Wedding at Cana.

Still, Hewitt said, we are not seeking to impose our religious views on society in general when we defend marriage. We can consider the Founders of our country. They appealed to the laws of Nature and of Natures god in the Declaration of Independence. Our very existence as a nation is premised on the natural law that we know is written on the hearts of men.

When I was interviewed on the Values Bus by Minnesota Public Radios (MPR) Rupa Shenoy, she noted the opposition of leading Minnesota liberals—Gov. Mark Dayton, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken—to the marriage referendum. I would not be drawn into criticizing local leaders. Instead, I made the case that marriage benefits everyone.

I related to MPR how, when I visit my friend Jim in prison, we are surrounded by fatherless young men. This is a national tragedy. Two-thirds of the teen murderers in our prisons and three-quarters of the incarcerated teen rapists are fatherless young men. I even noted that they write plays about the brutal murder of Matthew Shepherd, the young gay man killed in Laramie, Wyoming. His killers were two fatherless young men. Marriage, I told Rupa Shenoy, blesses everyone and bashes no one.

The venomous attacks on Minnesota for Marriages Kalley Yanta will backfire, I believe. She is called a spokeshrew and a witch promoting hatred by opponents of the marriage initiative. Such nastiness is counterproductive, especially in Minnesota.

Watch Kalley Yantas mild-mannered, reasoned Marriage Minutes on the web and try to fathom how anyone could call this lovely woman names. Its interesting that those who yell bully loudest seem to be the most practiced at bullying.

We rolled into Wisconsin on the Values Bus. Stopping in Madison, we were aware we were in the heart of Dane County, the only county in the Badger State that did not support marriage in the 2006 referendum. Still, even there we got waves and smiles. Its hard not to smile when you park next to a German restaurant and go in to hear an oompah band. (I loved seeing the childrens faces in the next booth. They were so excited. Such precious innocence. No one told them yet that polka bands are not cool.)

That 2006 Wisconsin vote for marriage should give us all heart. That was the year that Nancy Pelosi and her friends were swept into power in Washington. It was a year when we were told the old values were out.

But there in progressive Wisconsin, every county except Dane County joined the Wedding March. A stunning 59% of Wisconsinites backed marriage. Thats a landslide in any state. But in the home state of Battling Bob Lafollette, it shows that marriage has the widest support.

Marriage is not wedge issue. Its a bridge issue. I had a Minnesota State Rep. tell me that her Somali and Hmong (Cambodian) constituents had paraded through her office pressing her to vote for marriage.

Vice President Joe Biden claimed to be stepping into history when he said counterfeit marriage was inevitable. Actually, its evitable. And Biden may have stepped on a rake.

Support for marriage spans the divide. Wherever the people can speak, they say: I do.

by
Rob Schwarzwalder

May 22, 2012

The “Religious Right” is once again the subject of great media scrutiny. Just look for the term in any search engine, and more articles than one reasonably can read will pop-up. Most will be caustic, a few will smack of an academic detachment that borders, invariably, on the condescending, and the majority will be uncomprehending.

The demise of the Religious Right is reported copiously and regularly every four years or so. Odd; why is this dying breed so rigorously and persistently courted or deliberately ignored by politicians whenever they seek election?

As a Christian working for a large socially conservative organization, generally I don’t recognize the caricatures of religious activists that appear in the popular prints. Some leader made an off-the-wall statement 15 years ago and, apparently, it represents the thought and conduct of tens of millions to this day. Illogical as this is, it is the steadfast trope of the Left.

Thus, I read with great gratification John Mark Reynolds’ “The Other Religious Right.” Professor Reynolds, an Evangelical, observes that “the comment boxes on blogs, left and right, are full of people who see their Party as Good and the other Party as Orcs, but in real life those folk are rare. I have met them, but I have heard more than one sermon against them. They are, in my experience, marginalized by their own folly.”

This captures my experience, as well. The socially conservative Christians I know almost universally are compassionate, thoughtful, approachable, principled, and well-informed. Do they, or I, always speak with perfect nuance or total probity? No; we are human, and thus make mistakes. But the people I know, and with whom I serve, are far more characterized by their forgiving spirits and their eagerness to share the love of Christ (including through extraordinarily generous giving to international development ministries) than by the ignorance, bigotry, and bluster attributed to them by their smug and seemingly mystified opponents.

Growing up my church and my family worked to protect unborn children by law, because it was just, writes Professor Reynolds.

We had not dropped this protection, the Supreme Court took it. We certainly werent stupid enough to think the law would make people good, but we did think that the law could protect some unborn children. Periodically, we would step back and examine our motives. Critics were plentiful and happily pointed out our sins. We are now in the third iteration of the post-politics evangelicalism I remember. It is so predictable …

Predictable but frequent and, Im glad to report, tremendously exaggerated. The humble, committed Evangelical conservatives I know have an unabated passion for the sanctity of life, the centrality of religious liberty, and the importance of marriage and family to a decent society. They are going nowhere, fast.